If their contribution to this forum is any guide, some people seem to have devoted their life to bitching about things. Maybe complaining about things is what makes them happy in life, and far be it for me to tell them how they should live, but they should keep in mind that sounding like a broken record bores the fuck out of other people. It's probably no coincidence that the number of posters on the gorums has declined in the past few years.

The BTB movement was at its strongest when people were showing how cool, and how much fun BTB roleplay could be. It declined when enthusiasm was replaced by obsessive role play police. If you don't like how a sim RPs, don't go there. Start your own sim instead, and get people enthusiastic about that.

Declined? It seemed to be in a coma. And now it woke up from the coma. But probably briefly. And is it full of people complaining or otherwise irrelevant? Clearly. I don't even play in Gor atm. And a lot of us have chips on our shoulders about this or that.

As for the stuff Sasi and others here complain about (about SL Gor): I do get them, though I am not with them all the way (because, clearly, they favor the 'perdition'-style of RP-ing, which tends to be long-form para-RP all the way, and that is not a style I like) and I think they sometimes over-state their case. But... it IS true that there are people in SL Gor 'teaching' others about Gor and RP and all, people that don't always seem to grasp the whole RP-idea fully. I don't think that it is wrong that there is a little semi-comatose corner on the web were others bitch about that.

Gorums has always been the 'disappointed' bitching about the state of Gor!

Lacey wrote:Yes. Leave them on their own sims doing their stuff and support your local "not like that" sim. Every time someone makes one, it is either empty or full of a bunch of babies arguing about whether or not others are doing it right and how much better they are than everyone else. Seems like the attitude cannot be lost even when on a sim with like minded individuals. You are not going to taunt people into role playing the way you think they should. They are not going to remove second life from their computers nor are they going to go play elsewhere; therefore there is no need for the behavior.

With this attitude there would still be Serveries, Scriberies, Chillas, etc.

I agree people should be left to roleplay how they want. Personally I'm not fond of Political and Family roleplay sims because after the initial rush, it's going to turn into groups of women creating shitloads of IC drama and shovelling it onto the handful of men in play. The men get buried beneath the dirt and that's the last you'll see of them. Then there will only be groups of women and nothing else.

In ways I prefer lighter roleplay sims where I can do my own RP and the city just acts as a backdrop. You can ignore most oddities you encounter and get on with your personal RP. I can deal with barechested scribes and physicians in biker boots and I can deal with Tuchuk scars on Torvies. I've even learned to deal with emotes like "Rumbling, booming, thundering timbre of his deep baritone...". Whatever. I credit all abnormal male characterizations to interloping GBKs.

When it's crossing lines, Lacey, it's not about taunting people for how they roleplay. It's saying they know they've crossed those lines by violating their own sim's roleplaying standards. Even the Campus Legal Courses have a strong emphasis on IC/OOC separation. All of which becomes meaningless when people see these trials, imitate them, and make it a standard practice in BTB.

You can accept everything that happens, then BTB will become GE, and GE will become this opening clip:

In the past century there were ships transporting ice down from Iceland, to the UK's ports. That ice would be sold on the streets and markets. So it's not impossible to imagine ice-ships in Gor trading ice to the south, but it would be limited to port cities along the west coast.

Tantus wrote: I've even learned to deal with emotes like "Rumbling, booming, thundering timbre of his deep baritone...". Whatever. I credit all abnormal male characterizations to interloping GBKs.

Funny!! I thought I was the only person in SL who found that specific kind of emoting insanely annoying. Apparently ALL men in SL Gor has deep baritone voices. I have seen it so many times it's almost become a joke on level with the emerald orbs! I am SO tempted to give my brute mantoon character a high pitched girly voice just to go against the stream

Hey, just for grins, you should post that kind of roleplay on a random BtB sim and time how long before they kick you out, ha ha! Then im them and cry like a baby you're like 90 percent of SL Gor and on meds or shut in... alldatime

A forum is a perfect place for a debate, a discussion, the sharing of ideas, suggestions and complaints. If some people have an issue with that, they should just stop reading and find another occupation.

There are many people who only read these forums without being registered, too. Perhaps our posts do have some influence upon their own ideas, perharps do they evolve themselves and question their own beliefs, who knows...?

Recently, I attended a meeting about slave RP. In fact, we were only 4.... The host, a free man, me and another slave player . The subject was to rethink the slave RP, to do things in a different way for more RP.... I was curious. At a moment, the host ask us (the slave players) how we would engage in RP with a FW, alone in a city square. Both we replied that we would emote about a context/environment, about an occupation we would be doing (and one making sense for our characters) and how we would throw a post which would start a scene and give the FW player an opportunity to join.

Here a sample of the log (I'm "Slave Player B" in this quote):

[14:50] Host: Try something different[14:50] Host: Why not TALK to her.. see my point?[14:51] Host: Why rp by yourself?[14:51] Host: And this I tell to free women also.[14:51] Slave Player A: You can talk to someone without walking right up to them[14:51] Host: Why not walk right up to her?[14:51] Host: There are no rules. [14:51] Host: This is what we will talk about next. [14:52] Host: My point is.. why not make the first move.[14:52] Slave Player A: I consider that the first move[14:52] Host: laughs[14:52] Host: stubborn[14:53] Slave Player B: What I was about to say... Like Nissa. It's the first move.[14:53] Host: Well, this meeting is about doing something different than you usually do.[14:53] Slave Player B: And I don't think that Nissa is stubborn....[14:53] Host: I'm kidding[14:53] Slave Player A: I think it's a lot more freeing, to give someone that sort of an opening so they can decide how to approach it, fill me in on what they are doing, or even decide if they like my Rp style[14:53] Host: Ok[14:53] Slave Player B: Host.. Actually, our approach is very different from what is usually done in SL Gor...[14:53] Host: But let's just imagine doing something different than what you would usually do.[14:53] Slave Player B: Like "Greetings Mistress, may I bring you some drink?"[14:53] Slave Player A: for all I know I might be too heavy para oriented for them to want to write with, so it's a good way to introduce yourself, and your writing, without walking right up to them and dropping to their feet[14:54] Slave Player A: because once you do that[14:54] Host: No no[14:54] Host: No tea[14:54] Slave Player A: you are asking them to instantly lead scene[14:54] Host: No honeybuns[14:54] Slave Player A: which comes back to why this is a discussion in the first place[14:54] Host: No three sugars and all that jazz[14:54] Slave Player A: in general I mean[14:54] Host: To introduce some new ideas for slaves to lead scenes.[14:55] Host: It may seem out of the norm[14:55] Host: It may not seem so BTB[14:55] Host: But.. if you are looking to have more exciting rp, maybe leading is not such a bad idea.[14:55] Host: For example,[14:56] Host: Covering yourself in mud, as if you have been digging in the dirt all day and hand out flowers to the free women. This would definitely start a conversation.[14:56] Host: Strap a bota of paga onto your back and offer it to the Free men. If mead, offer it to the Free women also, you might be surprised as I know for a fact - they DO like to take a drink now and then, especially in private

And see, I'm pretty sure that many slave players would try this non sense RP which would only make them look as being desperate for attention. I'm sure too that many FM/FW players would find this suggestion as quite appropriate for slave RP... And I have already witnessed something rather similar in a slave house, 2 years ago, the girl brought a jarre full of bugs to the slaver, as a gift....

Not to mention that our approach, for the host's point of view, was not understood as an invitation made toward players around to start a scene with us, but as a scene where we only RPed by ourselves. For him, we were not engaging other people.....

So, I rather think there is not enough discussions about role play, in Gor, role play etiquette, RP basics, good and bad form RP, our characters' interactions in the culture of Gor, what makes sense, what is plausible, what is not, etc...

And if our discussions on these forums can just encourage even only 2 or 3 players to change their mind about a style of RP (in the style of the suggestion made by the host of this meeting or in the trial scene pasted by Tantus, for example), one they followed since years in believing it was the good way, it's already very positive.

Well...my big problem with that is slaves are universally supposed to be terrified of FW. It's like, a main, integral part of the societal norms in the genre. Walking up and offering a FW a flower would be the act of a foolish, deranged, or terminally naive slave girl. So, you know- if that's what you're meaning to play, guess it'd work but otherwise, seems counter to the role and totally disregards the fact that FW in general hated and were ferociously jealous of slave girls and slave girls lived in terror of invoking a FW's wrath.

And that goes back to the whole concept of, "if everyone plays something counter to the general, usual roles in the books, there is no norm and the genre itself loses all cohesion and becomes something- else. Gor Lite? But it loses quite a bit of the tension and intensity that really make it interesting in the books.

I think the 'host' meant well (even he/she was vaguely, insultingly patronizing) in suggesting that slave players can take the initiative and start up a scene- totes agree with that, but their examples leave a little something to be desired, and blowing off the other peoples' suggestions seemed a bit unhelpful as well. Eh. Par for the course, seems like. A little knowledge can be a tedious thing.

"...to take truth for granted is not to know it. Truth not won is not possessed. We are not entitled to truths for which we have not fought." --- (Marauders of Gor, p.7)http://clockworkkitteh.blogspot.com/